The smartphone app is a modern version of Scrabble and it’s been eating up more and more of my limited free time, much like Angry Birds and a number of other addictive mobile games did before it.

The Super Bowl ad even poked fun at my problem. It shows the creators of the game on an airplane playing it while a stewardess hovers over them, a snarky reference to a kerfuffle that made headlines late last year when actor Alec Baldwin got kicked off an American Airlines flight for refusing to turn the game off.

Since downloading Words with Friends a few months ago on my iPhone, and shortly after on my iPad, I can’t put it down either. Whenever I get a free minute – while waiting for the subway, say, or gobbling up lunch – I feel compelled to make a move. Alerts pop up on my devices letting me know when it’s my turn to play, and since I’ve accumulated nearly a dozen regular opponents, this happens several times a day…